Pentagon to rank global warming as destabilising force

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The planet is not a static system. However, there are "natural" processes that eclipse man's efforts to either control, or alter them. "Nature" always wins in the end. We are like fleas biting a dog on a runaway train.

Easter Island? The Dust Bowl? Three Mile Island? Waxing philosophical doesn't address reality, Socrates.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

####### are you smoking!? Famines and droughts don't cause mass migrations of people, hell wars don't even do that. People in 3rd world countries are just apathetic and lazy. If they can't build a house with a fortified underground bunker with a 6 month supply of food that can also resist fire, bombs and poison gas - then they're just welfare leeches after a handout.

[Peikko 1,575]

It's getting to be the go to response of the right wing nuts, that's true. Unbelievable.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Easter Island? The Dust Bowl? Three Mile Island? Waxing philosophical doesn't address reality, Socrates.

It's all bubbles. Interesting stuff.

ETA: I wonder if fleas understand Unification Theory.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Lone Ranger

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It's all bubbles. Interesting stuff.

ETA: I wonder if fleas understand Unification Theory.

In the scope of the entire earth, I suppose you could dismiss them as bubbles, but then you could probably dismiss the importance of human life on this planet when viewed from space. How climate change will directly affect us humans is at the heart of why the world's nations together with the leading bodies of science take this as a serious matter.

I suppose where you live, if some man-made environmental catastrophe happened that made a serious impact on your quality of life, you'd have a bit of different perspective....like seeing through the lens of a microscope for the first time.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Easter Island? The Dust Bowl? Three Mile Island? Waxing philosophical doesn't address reality, Socrates.

What did TMI do to the planet? You making a statement like that shows how little you know on this subject. TMI was the last thing we learned about in Naval Nuclear Power School. TMI had huge economical impacts but insignificant environmental impact.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

What did TMI do to the planet? You making a statement like that shows how little you know on this subject. TMI was the last thing we learned about in Naval Nuclear Power School. TMI had huge economical impacts but insignificant environmental impact.

Rich, lets not get into a, I-know-more-than-you argument. How about Chernobyl? Nagasaki? Hiroshima? Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez spill? I could go on and on.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Rich, lets not get into a, I-know-more-than-you argument. How about Chernobyl? Nagasaki? Hiroshima? Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez spill? I could go on and on.

How about Prince William Sound after a 9.2 earthquake? You put all the nuclear arsenals together and set them off at the same time, you could not even come close to the amount of energy released in that one event.

The earthquake was accompanied by vertical displacement over an area of about 520,000 square kilometers. The major area of uplift trended northeast from southern Kodiak Island to Price William Sound and trended east-west to the east of the sound. Vertical displacements ranged from about 11.5 meters of uplift to 2.3 meters of subsidence relative to sea level. Off the southwest end of Montague Island, there was absolute vertical displacement of about 13 - 15 meters. Uplift also occurred along the extreme southeast coast of Kodiak Island, Sitkalidak Island, and over part or all of Sitkinak Island. This zone of subsidence covered about 285,000 square kilometers, including the north and west parts of Prince William Sound, the west part of the Chugach Mountains, most of Kenai Peninsula, and almost all the Kodiak Island group.

This shock generated a tsunami that devasted many towns along the Gulf of Alaska, and left serious damage at Alberni and Port Alberni, Canada, along the West Coast of the United States (15 killed), and in Hawaii. The maximum wave height recorded was 67 meters at Valdez Inlet. Seiche action in rivers, lakes, bayous, and protected harbors and waterways along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas caused minor damage. It was also recorded on tide gages in Cuba and Puerto Rico.

This great earthquake was felt over a large area of Alaska and in parts of western Yukon Territory and British Columbia, Canada.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/sta.../1964_03_28.php

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

In the scope of the entire earth, I suppose you could dismiss them as bubbles, but then you could probably dismiss the importance of human life on this planet when viewed from space. How climate change will directly affect us humans is at the heart of why the world's nations together with the leading bodies of science take this as a serious matter.

I suppose where you live, if some man-made environmental catastrophe happened that made a serious impact on your quality of life, you'd have a bit of different perspective....like seeing through the lens of a microscope for the first time.

Naw, it's just the Progressives finding any excuse to manage every aspect of our lives. The Hippie-Know-It-All's just think there are too many stupid people out there.

Ft8LfE7AI2w

[scandal 951]

you could probably dismiss the importance of human life on this planet when viewed from space.

Of course you could. Human life is totally irrelevant in the great scheme of things. Except to we humans, ourselves.

The universe cares not a whit what we do or don't do.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Of course you could. Human life is totally irrelevant in the great scheme of things. Except to we humans, ourselves.

The universe cares not a whit what we do or don't do.

Except that we are the Universe, Creator and Creation. So in that sense, that "We are the Universe, trying to understand ourselves," I take exception.

Are there no amateur theoretical physicists out there? No vedic mathematicians?

[mendeleev 68]

The Pentagon's realization of security threats posed by anthropogenic global warming may be prompted, in part, by their analysis of the demise of their former adversary, the Soviet Union. It is hard to overemphasize the loss of legitimacy the Soviet government experienced in the former republics after Chernobyl. This self-inflicted nuclear disaster increased the pace and ultimately changed the trajectory of the disintegration of the Soviet state. The loss of confidence by the public in former elites, the Communist Party and its control apparatus, the military, and the State, led to the amazing result that the Union fell apart without a big war of dismemberment. The rapid, largely nonviolent but ultimately revolutionary demise of that Union should give Conservatives of whatever ideology pause.

Climate Change represents a huge challenge the Conservatives. On the one hand, addressing the threat will involve substantial change to the established order (which several dissenting posters here directly benefit from due to their employment in the oil and gas industry). If politically conservative forces prevail and are perceived to be an obstacle when painful surprises come, the resultant changes could be more revolutionary than anything now contemplated. And Climate Change is likely to wreak painful surprises on the world in the coming years.

Those who stand in the way now would do well to study history and note the personally disastrous consequences that accrued to those who turned out to be on the wrong side of history. In particular, study the French revolution following 1989 and Russian revolutions following 1917 and from 1984-93.

I daresay that the Pentagon does not want contemporary American capitalism to suffer the fate of the societies of Louis XVI or Nicholas II or Gorbachev.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Good night. I'll let ALC play amateur historian, and correct a few misconceptions, generalizations, and fallacies there!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Of course you could. Human life is totally irrelevant in the great scheme of things. Except to we humans, ourselves.

The universe cares not a whit what we do or don't do.

Which seems to be Bill's philosophical view about life in general. He fails to see the human significance of geological scale.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Which seems to be Bill's philosophical view about life in general. He fails to see the human significance of geological scale.

You have no clue about what I am talking about, do you?